Does The OIC Need Another Vocal Leader?

By Farish A. Noor

Faced with the geopolitical realities of today, it is clear that the Muslim
world is facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions – and what is more the
near-total absence of credible leadership. The Organisation of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) has proven itself to be totally defunct and decrepit,
unable to stand up to both Western hegemony and the machinations of the
Washington consensus when it comes to the ever-growing dominance of
neo-liberal economic strategies. From Morocco to Indonesia, it is evident
that the Muslim world is not only weak, but has been put up on sale to boot.

Therefore it hardly comes as a surprise that more and more Muslim
intellectuals, politicians, analysts and columnists are clamouring for some
form of vocal, even strident, leadership to steer the Muslim community away
from the choppy waters of international politics today. One such appeal has
come from Kaleem Omar, who, in his article ‘Muslim World Needs Another
Mahathir Mohamad To Stand Up to the West’ reiterated the call for yet
another tough Muslim leader to take up the mantle of leadership of the OIC.

While it is undeniable that the OIC is paralysed and that the Muslim world –
despite the number of Muslims today – is relatively weaker than it has ever
been, one is forced to ask the obvious question: Would having another
Mahathir Mohamad help the Muslim condition?

Here we are forced to take issue with some of Kaleem Omar’s claims, and
point out the other side of the Malaysian story when the country was
governed by the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. While it is true
that Mahathir was himself an economic nationalist who wanted (and succeeded)
to transform the import-substituting colonial economy into one of the
thriving industrialised ‘Asian Tiger’ economies of the 1980s, it should also
be noted that the Malaysian developmental project was premised upon several
presuppositions that remain questionable:

For a start, unlike the earlier generation of Asian and African nationalists
such as Nehru, Patrice Lamumba, Jomo Kenyata and Sukarno – who were part of
the ‘Bandung generation’ of the 1950s, Mahathir’s politics and economics
were on the right of centre. Mahathir’s transformation of the Malaysian
economy did not fall back on a state controlled central command model but
rather worked in the opposite direction: By allowing for the penetration of
foreign direct investment (FDI) into Malaysia and by courting capital from
abroad. The Malaysian ‘economic miracle’ was thus bankrolled by foreign
investment from countries like Japan and Korea, as well as Western
investment from Europe and the United States of America. One of the net
results of this external capital-driven development is that Malaysia today
has more branches of Mac Donalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and golf courses
than any other Asian or African country. Economic nationalism indeed…

Despite the rhetoric of ‘Asian values’ that were being promoted in the 1980s
and 1990s, Malaysia’s economy was very much geared towards the needs and
demands of the global marketplace and global capital. This was reflected in
Malaysia’s trading partnerships, where countries like the USA and Japan
remained – till today – the country’s most important trading partners. Where
does the Muslim community come in all this? Hardly anywhere, for the total
sum of trade with the entire Muslim world up to the 1990s was less than 5
per cent of Malaysia’s trade externally.

The other myth that is seriously in need of being debunked is the idea that
Malaysia, during the Mahathir years, was somehow a defender of Muslim
interests. While it cannot be denied that Malaysia’s foreign policy
posturing had changed visibly during the 1980s and 1990s, with the country
openly supporting the Palestinian cause and taking up the issue of
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kashmir, Chechnya, etc., it should also be noted that
back home during the same period Malaysians witnessed the worst persecution
of the country’s Islamic opposition. The 1980s was the time when the
Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) was routinely hounded by the state and the
state-controlled media, and was also the period that witnessed the
inevitable radicalisation of PAS as a result. Between 1984 to 1987 PAS
leaders were arrested, detained and demonised as ‘radicals’ and
‘fundamentalists’, long before it became trendy to call Muslims ‘militants’
following 11 September 2001. So how could anyone think of Malaysia then as a
model for Muslim leadership today?

The third myth that has to be discounted is the notion that strong
leadership creates a strong civil society. Quite the opposite: Powerful
leaders often end up emasculating their own followers, and during the 1980s
and 1990s Malaysia witnessed several nation-wide security crackdowns such as
‘Operation Lalang’ in 1987, where scores of civil society actors, NGO
activists, Union leaders and politicians were detained without trial. The
country’s judiciary was neutered, while the press was muzzled. Is this the
sort of leadership that the OIC needs now? (Some might say that dictatorship
is already the norm in most Arab-Muslim countries anyway.)

Today Malaysia is poised on the brink of signing a Free Trade Agreement
(FTA) with the USA which many economists and analysts argue would only
weaken the already strained social support system of Malaysian society in
the long run. Ironically it is the former Malaysian Prime Minister,
Mahathir, who is campaigning against the move and also asking the Malaysian
public to react. But Malaysian society is weaker today than ever before, and
the state is even more centralised. Who was responsible for this, if not
Mahathir and his supporters (like Anwar Ibrahim) in the past?

So with all due respect to Kaleem Omar, who obviously feels so keenly the
pain that is shared by Muslims the world over, we would argue that the OIC
and the global Muslim community needs less powerful leaders whose speeches
and rhetoric do not match their deeds. The Muslim world needs empowerment
from below, and this will come from stronger trade unions, Women’s
movements, student movements, independent judiciaries and a free press.
After half a century of ‘powerful leaders’ who arrest their own people in
the name of progress and development, we need to give ordinary Muslims the
chance to run their own lives and determine their own fate for once.

End.

Dr. Farish A. Noor is a Malaysian political scientist based at the Zentrum
Moderner Orient, and one of the founders of the http://www.othermalaysia.org
research site.